Balkan Road Trip: Days 8 and 9

We left the River Bara campsite in Bosnia and Herzegovina around 8:30 after a delicious breakfast of sausage and eggs. Once we got to Croatia we had a nice straight toll road that we were on pretty much the whole way through the country. Croatia was the most expensive as far as tolls go, but we definitely made good time!

We stopped at a rest stop around 12 and bought some groceries for lunch.

The reality of being in our van with 5 kids and all of our stuff for 18 days!

We got to our campsite, the Kamp Turist Grabovac, around 1:45. We found a nice spot and then headed straight to the pool and let the kids burn off some energy!!

After swimming for awhile we set up our tent and made some BLT sandwiches for dinner.

There was a nice sand volleyball court and playground at the campground that we had fun playing at in the evening. 

The next morning we were up pretty early, no one slept that well because we were COLD overnight. We ate some cereal and bananas for breakfast and then caught a bus from the campground to our destination for the day: Plitvice Lakes National Park. We got there around 9 and there was already a long line to get in. Thankfully the line moved quickly and we were in the park in no time.

A map of the park. It's huge - 295 sq. km. of forest, lakes and waterfalls.

I have wanted to visit Plitvice Lakes National Park for the longest time and I was so happy we finally made it here! The park has 16 terraced lakes, joined by waterfalls. Beautiful wooden walkways wind around the turquoise water. Let me just show you some pictures and I'm sure you will want to visit too . . .

 The Veliki Slap, the biggest waterfall in the park.

The kids really enjoyed all the different kinds of fish.

Seriously magical!! Is this real life?!?!

I'm so glad we went in the morning, because this walkway was so crowded on our way back through and the line was moving slowly.

We were at the park from 9 to 3:30 and we only explored a quarter of it. We actually ended up walking back to the entrance shortly after 1 because the kids were so tired. So we bought some ice cream and sat in the shade to cool off (and Joel took a nap) while we waited for the 3:30 bus back to our campsite.

It was a tiring, but extremely fun day! I would LOVE to go back sometime with just Joel and be able to spend more time at the park! 

We headed right to the pool after arriving at the campsite. Then the kids played with playdough while Joel grilled us some dinner!

Yum!